


Breaking the Ice

by jdjunkie



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Christmas, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-02
Updated: 2010-12-02
Packaged: 2017-10-13 11:48:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/137002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdjunkie/pseuds/jdjunkie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Christmas Eve is a night when anything seems possible ...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breaking the Ice

**Author's Note:**

> This is set on Christmas Eve in season seven, three months after Daniel's return.

Jack took a small sip of eggnog and grimaced. Thankfully, he was facing away from Daniel, towards the fireplace, and Daniel didn’t see it.

“Perfect,” Jack said, lying but hiding it rather well, he thought. He poured Daniel a cup from the bowl that sat on the coffee table.

Daniel held out a hand, eyes still on the TV and the final scene of It’s a Wonderful Life. Jack placed the cup carefully into his hand and sat down beside him on the couch.

“Corny, contrived, vastly predictable ...  fan-tastic,” Daniel said as the credits rolled, smiling a little and shaking his head in apparent disbelief.

“I cannot believe you’ve never seen it. Or, at least, you don’t think you’ve ever seen it. It’s a classic. It’s as much a part of Christmas as family arguments and this stuff.” Jack raised his cup and tried not to wince at the thought of having to drink more.

Daniel took a taste, swallowed and made a face. It was kind of a cute face... scrunchy and frowny and thoughtful. Very Daniel. And Jack was delighted to see it. _This_ Daniel, the Daniel sitting in Jack’s living room on Christmas Eve night three months after Vis Uban, was a little different to the Daniel who had left so painfully a year ago.

He was older somehow, not in years but in experience. Quieter maybe. Definitely more  ... careful . More careful with his feelings.  Different.  So any signs of the former Daniel were welcomed, because if the old Daniel really was in there, beneath this new surface, there was always the chance that one day he’d remember. Everything.

“You _like_ this?” Daniel peered warily into the cup.

“It’s traditional.”

“So is bullfighting. Doesn’t make it right.” He screwed up his nose and sniffed at the contents. “Did I like it? You know. Before?”

“You don’t remember?”

Daniel continued to study the depths of the drink and said abstractedly, “Not this.” And that almost prompted Jack to ask the question, although he clenched his fists, clenched his gut harder and didn’t. Fraiser had pretty much insisted everyone stopped asking it. So “Exactly what _do_ you remember, Daniel?” was out of bounds.

Daniel didn’t remember the eggnog, this inconsequential thing, and he seemingly didn’t remember lots of other things which were entirely consequential. Jack tried for the hundredth time not to let it hurt so much. But somehow, today, it hurt a lot. Well, screw the holiday season and its heightened emotions.  Jack swirled the liquid in the little cup. “Honestly? I have no idea whether you liked it.” _I do know that stroking your hair used to make you curl up in delight, that you liked it when I cupped your dick after you came, that holding you as you came down filled a hole in my life I didn’t know was there ..._ “Don’t recall ever drinking the stuff with you. Thought you might want to try it. Personally, I’d rather drink raw eggs. Even the rum can’t rescue it for me.”

Daniel placed the cup on the table, deliberately and with great care. There was a tension in him that hadn’t been there a minute before, Jack could have sworn, but Daniel was hard to read these days. He’d never been an open book, but now he was positively guarded. It made sense, Jack thought, in his more rational moments. Daniel was bound to have trouble readjusting to the corporeal world he’d been thrust back into. That would definitely result in a few barriers being thrown up. In his less rational moments, Jack wanted to tear those walls down with his bare hands.

“Could we maybe take a walk or something?” Daniel asked, eyes settling anywhere but on Jack’s face. This restlessness was a new thing. It was as though his mind was working in a hundred different directions at once and Daniel couldn’t quite cope with it. A walk, a coffee, a visit to the gym ... any distraction from the machinations of his over-worked brain.

Jack picked up the remote from the table and switched off the TV just as Miracle on 34th Street began. “Sure,” he said, softly, “why not?” He rose from his seat and banked the fire with two more logs. He stood for a moment as they settled and hissed, making sure they didn’t spit burning embers onto the rug. He became of aware of Daniel standing behind him, close behind him. He closed his eyes and breathed in, taking a hit of Daniel along with the spiced, smoky scent of the logs.

It was heaven.

“You don’t have a tree,” Daniel said, and Jack could feel the shape of the words as Daniel’s breath bathed Jack’s neck. He shivered.

“Don’t usually bother. I have trees enough in the yard.”

He didn’t explain that he hadn’t put up a Christmas tree since Charlie died. He still had the decorations in a box in the attic. Sara said she couldn’t bear to have them. To this day, he could feel the familiar texture of the wool of the Mexican star his son had made in kindergarten; soft strands that made his heart bleed.

“I’m surprised Teal’c didn’t insist. He’s a stickler for tradition.” Daniel moved away, picking up the eggnog cups. Jack felt the loss of Daniel’s body heat keenly. He yearned for it, ached for the warmth that only Daniel could bring to his home and his bed and his life. Before the strain and anger and despair that drove them apart.

“You should have seen the giant pile of gifts he’s taken with him for Rya’c. What the hell the kid’s going to make of the box set of Star Wars DVDs is anyone’s guess.”

“Remastered?”

“Oh yeah.”

“That sucks.”

Jack smiled and huffed a laugh. The way Daniel said that ... it sounded so much like Jack. It was wonderful and it was heart-breaking. He’d got Daniel back and that meant so much, but it also pointed up what he’d lost.

Christ.

He was so screwed.

Jack followed Daniel into the kitchen and poured the eggnog down the sink on a pungent waft of alcohol.  “Pity Fraiser’s not here. She’d have dived in head-first and never come up for air. She loves this stuff.”

“She likes Southern Comfort better,” Daniel said, the surprise in his voice obvious. He looked startled.

“You just remembered that?” H e wasn’t breaking Fraiser’s rule. He was merely ... asking.

“Yeah.” There was that abstraction again.  Daniel frowned and licked his lips, seemingly deep in thought. “It happens like that sometimes. A snippet of information here, an apparently unrelated thought there. There’s no rhyme or reason to what comes back, or why. It’s ... frustrating that something like that little nugget about Janet will present itself but other stuff, probably important stuff, eludes me.” And he was off in his head again; and Jack just knew he was analyzing, logging the new data, trying to make sense of it all.

He honest to god ached for him and had done since Daniel had come back through the wormhole to a life he didn’t recognize.  At first there was the sheer, unalloyed joy and relief at getting him back. Living, breathing, Daniel made flesh. But, god, the reality of Daniel picking up the pieces  was nothing but hard. Daniel looked exhausted sometimes. Confused. Unhappy even.  Daniel’s visions of Rya’c and Bra’tac in the Jaffa death camp and his knowledge that, as an ascended being, he had stood by and done nothing to help, had hit him hard.

And Jack felt utterly helpless as he watched Daniel struggling to cope.

“And please, don’t tell me to relax, or that it’ll be okay and it’ll all come back eventually. Intellectually, I know that is probably true. A lot of things _have_ come back. I just ... really don’t want to be told again. If that’s okay with you.” Daniel put the cups in the sink and stood there, next to Jack, shoulders hunched, radiating tension.

“Actually, I was going to ask if you needed to borrow a hat. Maybe gloves. It’s freezing out there.” Jack half-turned to face him and regarded him levelly.

Daniel sighed, his shoulders slumping a little, and then he gave Jack a wry smile.  “Sorry. It’s ... I must be drunk. The eggnog ...”

“Of which you had but one tiny sip.”

“Okay, okay. I’m still a cheaper date than your wife.”

Seven years and history was repeating itself. A hurting, disoriented Daniel here in his house because Jack couldn’t bear him to be anywhere else and Daniel didn’t know what to do with himself; Daniel fighting another loss, only this time he’d lost a part of himself.

 “And to answer your question, yes to the gloves, no to the hat. I remember your collection of hats. You have one that makes you look like a pencil tip complete with eraser. So, thanks, but I’ll pass.”

Jack laughed. God it felt so good. His laughter made Daniel smile in return and they stood in the kitchen like a pair of gauche teenagers, enjoying the moment and feeling embarrassed about it. This getting to know each other again was a difficult thing.

“You’ll regret it. It’s colder than Kinsey’s heart out there,” Jack called over his shoulder as he reluctantly stepped away from Daniel and walked into the hall to shrug into his coat and pull on hiking boots.

“We’ll see,” Daniel said, angling past Jack to zip up his thick jacket and take the pair of woollen gloves Jack handed him.

“And I do not look like a pencil,” Jack retorted, because he could and felt he should. He turned up his collar and snatched a knitted cap from the coat rack, shoving it on to his head.

Daniel watched him with smiling eyes. “You’re right. Not a pencil. More like a pocket vibrator.”

Jack looked suitably affronted as he opened the front door to a blast of cold air and gestured Daniel out with an insouciant grin on his face.

There had been no fresh fall in the past 24 hours but the snow still lay inches deep on the ground. This late in the evening, the temperature was well below zero and the sky was filled with stars and a benevolent almost-full moon.

They walked slowly along ice-covered sidewalks, occasionally slipping, even in good walking boots. Daniel almost slid over a couple of times, reaching out to grab a handful of Jack to keep him upright. Jack didn’t want him to let go when he regained his balance. Even through the layers of clothes, the touch felt wonderful. Warm and right.

They slithered along in sedate fashion until they reached the park. It was deserted now, save for a couple walking a busy Labrador that snuffled and sniffed its way along. But evidence of the day’s fun was everywhere; snowmen with fir cones for eyes and twigs for arms and indentations in the pristine snow where snowballs had missed their targets and landed.

It was amazingly peaceful and beautiful. And when Jack snuck a sideways glance at Daniel as they passed the swings in the children’s playground, he found peace and beauty there too, the earlier tension gone. The clear-cut, striking profile delineated by silver moonlight almost took his breath away.

“Are you okay?” Jack asked, shoving his hands in his pockets because even pure wool wasn’t enough to keep out this kind of cold.

Daniel was quiet for a moment, his breath huffing out in white clouds against the blue-black sky. “Do you mean right this minute or more generally?”

“Either. Both.”

Daniel halted in his tracks and tilted his head towards the swings. “Wanna sit?”

Jack turned and looked. A thin layer of ice covered the wooden seats of the swings. “We’ll freeze our asses off.”

“Our asses are already frozen. Like our noses and ears and quite possibly eyelashes, if that’s possible.”

Jack sniffed against the cold. “Told you you should have worn a hat. You could at least cross ears off that list.”

Daniel rolled his eyes.  “Come on.”

They sat on neighboring swings and swung back and forth gently.

“I’m okay. Mostly.  My memories are returning, although I’ll never know exactly what I’ve lost. Obviously.  It helps when people don’t ask the question. And I’m sorry about earlier. I over-reacted and you didn’t deserve that.”

Jack shrugged. “S’okay.”

Daniel peered up at the sky and pushed himself higher on the swing, one foot still on the ground. “No. It’s not. Sam’s been amazing since I came back. Always there, encouraging. Teal’c has been quietly, unobtrusively supportive. I’ve spent a lot of time with him just ... being. It’s helped a lot. And you’ve been ... very patient. I know this isn’t easy on you. On any of you. It must be hard.”

 _Hard doesn’t begin to cover it._ “We’re just glad you’re here, Daniel. Anything else, any other problems, take a very distant second place.”

Daniel smiled at that, a small, self-deprecating smile that Jack wanted to kiss gently off his face. “It’s nice to know I was missed.”

Jack swallowed. The urge to show him exactly how much he’d been missed was overwhelming. Instead he settled for a truth that came nowhere near saying what was in his heart. “You were missed.” Their swinging was in complete sync; back and forth, back and forth. They always found their rhythm.

Daniel swung a little higher, both feet off the ground now, pushing and pulling, leaning back and smiling some more.

A church bell tolled in the distance, calling believers to midnight mass. The clarity of sound in the still, freezing air was spectacular.

“God ... this night,” Jack said, out of nowhere, unaware that he was going to say the words until they actually left his mouth. “As a kid, I couldn’t wait to get to bed because that made the morning come quicker. It has something, a special quality ...” He stopped his swing from moving and watched Daniel get higher and higher. For one terrifying second he wanted to stop him, afraid that, if we went too high, he’d never come back to earth. “There’s just something about the stillness, about the magic, that speaks of ... hope. It’s a night when anything seems possible.” Jack rolled his eyes at his own sentimentality. “Sorry,” he said, embarrassed. “Ignore me. I’m not usually prone to spouting home-spun mawkish crap. Tis the season to be ridiculous.”

Daniel didn’t reply, just kept up his steady swinging rhythm. A sudden burst of laughter, perhaps a group of friends walking home after a night out, cut through their silence. Gradually, Daniel slowed and came to a stop. “If anything is possible, I need to ask you something,” he said.

Jack turned to face him. “What?”

“I need to know if you can forgive me. For leaving. Ascending.”

Jack frowned, genuinely surprised at the question.  “What’s to forgive? You were caught between a rock and hard place. It was your only way out.”

Daniel’s gaze was piercing. Like he was searching for a truth he desperately needed to find. “ I could have stayed. Jacob was healing me. He could have made me whole.”

“You couldn’t have known that.”

“When did I ever run away from anything, Jack? When did I start taking the easy option?”

Jack let out a frustrated, half-formed, “Wha-?” Then he licked his lips to give himself a moment to think.  The cold made is lips dry and stiff. What the hell were doing out in the freezing cold, and what the hell were they doing discussing this now? “You saw ascension as the easy option?”

Daniel shrugged his shoulders.

“Bullshit,” Jack said, angrily. “It was never the easy way out and you know it. You’ve never liked playing by other people’s rules. Especially when you thought those rules were a crock. You must have known it was never going to be plain sailing. But you still made the choice, and that doesn’t sound like ducking out to me.”

Daniel’s gaze was still locked on him. This mattered. This mattered a whole lot to him. “I think ... I believe ... that thinking I could do more that way was only part of the reason I left.” Daniel stopped and Jack felt some emotional cord pull tight between them.  “I think I left because I couldn’t stand the fact that somewhere along the way we lost each other.

Jack felt a block of ice form in his gut. Cold. He was so fucking cold.

“And even if Jacob had succeeded, I wouldn’t have been whole again because there was too much of me missing. I don’t know how that happened. I don’t know what went on between us, I can’t remember. But I feel  -- I sense -- that we had something beyond friend ship. I need to know if I’m right, and I need to know if you can forgive me for hurting you.”

Jack was stunned into silence, shocked by the intensity of Daniel’s pain and the enormity of what the truth could mean here. He let out a deep breath and closed his eyes.

“God,” he whispered. What to say? How to explain what happened? How could he, when he didn’t fully understand it himself? But one look at Daniel’s eyes, at the desperation there, told Jack that he had to try.

“You’re right. We had something. Something pretty great, actually. But it was never easy. It was snatched and furtive and ... intense.  Whatever it was, I don’t have a name for it. Words are your thing. But it was love, Daniel. Difficult, amazing ... love.” He stopped. Daniel’s face was a mask. Unreadable. Jack had no idea if this was what Daniel expected to hear.  He sighed. Too late to stop now. “When I realized that I’d fallen so hard for you, when I realized what it would mean for you and me, for the team, I backed off. You were hurt. Work became nearly impossible. My anger at myself bled into my role as your CO. I put as much distance between us as I could that last year and then I did the unforgiveable and played Carter off against you. It was shitty and mean and it never went anywhere because she was too smart and loved you too much. But still. By the time Oma came calling, we were so far apart I don’t think you recognized me at all.” Clipped, informative, just give him the facts. Emotions could go fuck themselves.

“And it was all down to me, Daniel. And I’m sorry. And I can talk about this more if you want to but I feel like shit and I’m fucking freezing and I really want to go home.”

Jack couldn’t look at Daniel anymore. He was too afraid of what he’d see. Afraid he’d see all his anger and self-loathing reflected back at him. The swing creaked as he got up and walked away. He wasn’t at all sure Daniel would follow. How ironic that this wonderful, indefinable thing he’d had with Daniel could end on this most wonderful of nights.

Jack walked on until he reached the edge of a pond. It was frozen hard, its surface smoother than a sheet of glass.

After a few moments, he heard footsteps behind him. Daniel drew level, his arrival signaled by plumes of condensed breath.

“I love those pictures you see of ducks landing on frozen water. So ungainly and funny,” Daniel said.

Jack tensed and felt impatient at the frivolous conversation. If Daniel was about to administer the final blow to their friendship, relationship, whatever they had, could he not just do it?

“Thank you for telling me,” Daniel said, softly. “It helps a lot. There’s obviously a lot of stuff I haven’t remembered. About ...  us. And, to be honest, I don’t think it matters now. But what you’ve said has made sense of some things and I’m grateful for that.” Daniel sniffed loudly and then, out of the blue, sneezed. Twice.

“Bless,” Jack said, automatically, and reached into his coat pocket for a handkerchief. He handed it over and Daniel blew his nose.

“Thanks,” he said, offering Jack the handkerchief.

“It’s yours. Call it an early Christmas present.”

Daniel inspected the white linen and wiped his nose again for good measure.

“I asked Sam, you know, back on Vis Uban. If there had ever been anything between us. She said no straight away, but she kind of looked at me and then out towards where you were. I didn’t get that look. I think now I do.”

Jack flinched inwardly. He always suspected Carter knew. She really was one hell of a second in command. He picked up a small stone on the path and threw it onto the ice. It didn’t break through, just skittered and spun until it disappeared into the dark.

Daniel sneezed again.

“Sounds like you’re getting a cold. Fraiser will have my ass in a sling. We should get back.”

Jack turned towards the entrance to the park but Daniel put a hand on his arm. “Wait. You didn’t answer my question.”

Jack cycled back through their conversation. He smiled, a small close-mouthed smile. “I could ask you the same question.”

The hand on Jack’s arms stayed where it was and it burned.

“There’s nothing to forgive,” Daniel said gently, a world of truth in his eyes.

“Back at ya.”

Daniel squeezed Jack’s arm.

“We can talk, Daniel, about everything, if you want that. I hurt you, but there were good things, too. So many good things.”

“I want to know. Everything. Good and bad. It’s all us, and it all brought us here.”

They stood together, locked in stasis, while the world around them rolled on towards Christmas morning. Jack swallowed hard and his heart beat so hard he was sure Daniel could see it thumping through the layers of clothing.

“And you’re right about tonight. Anything is possible,” Daniel whispered. 

Jack closed his eyes.  What could he say to make him understand?  “Daniel. I missed you so much.”

Cold lips pressed against Jack’s. A gentle brush that thawed something deep inside. Shards of ice fell away from his heart and then their bodies were pressed together, hugging and holding, and Jack was whispering words against Daniel’s mouth that meant everything and nothing.

They kissed, small, frantic, never-enough kisses that dissolved into smiles and then more kisses. Jack’s hands roamed over Daniel’s back and he clung tighter, never wanting to let go. It was dizzying and Jack felt drunk on the taste of Daniel’s mouth. God, that beautiful mouth.

Jack had no idea how long they stood there. It felt like forever. It was bliss.

And then, Daniel pulled away, grabbed on to the lapels of Jack’s coat, half turned away and sneezed again.

Jack laughed. “That’s very you,” he said, fondly. He rubbed Daniel’s arms, suddenly very aware of how cold he was and how cold Daniel must be, too. “Come on. Let’s get you home. I promise, no more eggnog.”

Daniel blew his nose again, then grinned. It was a beautiful, nothing-hidden expression of joy, and Jack’s heart leapt in delight. “That’s good,” Daniel said. “Time we made some new traditions.”

Jack leaned in and kissed him one more time, a soft kiss full of love and promise.

They walked off together, Daniel skidding on a patch of black ice as they hit the sidewalk again. This time, Jack noticed, when he grabbed a handful of Jack, he didn’t let go.

 

ends


End file.
